OUR OPINION: 3 stories of resilience overcoming challenges

Editor's note: Readers often comment that there should be more good news in the paper. While it's true that there's more than enough bad news to go around, on Mondays on the Editorial page we will highlight some of the many good-news stories that appear on our pages on a regular basis. This week we bring you three stories of people overcoming life's greatest challenges and doing so with remarkable resilience.

Mertz directs the New England Wildlife Center in Weymouth, which hosts a pilot program, in conjunction with Norfolk County Sheriff Michael G. Bellotti, to teach minimum security inmates from the Norfolk County jail real-world life skills. According to Bellotti, the program also gives the nine participants a greater level of respect they can’t get inside a prison and offers them options for when they get out.

If you haven’t read the full story in the April 24 edition of The Ledger, you must. The program offers both classroom lessons and hands-on experience caring for injured and/or abandoned wildlife – a condition to which the nine inmates can relate. They assist in feeding and examining the animals – not always easy tasks when the “patients” routinely defecate on their caregivers – and even calculating exact dosages of medicine and fluids ill animals need.

Not every enterprise would welcome current inmates. As Bellotti points out, anyone who’s served time bears a stigma which makes becoming a contributing member of society challenging once they’re released – and most are released. We commend the center for caring about, as Mertz put it, all “disenfranchised populations.”

No. 2: Quincy’s Vietnam veterans

Robert Brudno has good reason to be bitter. His brother, Air Force Capt. E. Alan Brudno, was shot down over North Vietnam in 1965, was held as a prisoner of war for 71/2 brutal years and then committed suicide four months after being freed. But instead, Brudno is forgiving.

He said he waged his own war of sorts on his brother’s behalf, attempting to get the country and the people to give Vietnam veterans the respect they deserve but never received upon their homecoming. Now that battle is over, Brudno said at Quincy’s Vietnam Veterans Day ceremony held last Thursday at Marina Bay.

“Our country really does appreciate your service and regrets that it didn’t support us when we most needed it,” said Brudno.

For someone who lost so much, Brudno has proven wisdom and compassion are more resilient than the failings of an entire nation.

We commend all of the veterans who attended Thursday’s service, and those who couldn’t, and we thank each of them for their service.

No. 3: Boston Marathon participants

A week later and it’s still hard to fathom how far an entire city, state, region has come in healing from the 2013 Boston Marathon.

Only a year ago, thousands were traumatized by two bombs that stole three young lives and irrevocably changed thousands more. But the mayhem that was the 2013 marathon was in many ways overcome by the majesty of the 2014 marathon.

Page 2 of 2 - Last Monday, we saw Carmen Acabbo cross the finish line holding hands with her sister Celeste Corcoran and Celeste’s daughter Sydney, 18, both of whom were severely injured last year. We saw the return of volunteer nurses and other first responders, like Quincy’s Bill Dockham, to the medical tents in spite of how horrific last year’s medical needs were, and we were dazzled by the number of marathon spectators and participants who broke attendance records. Everyone cheered for everyone.

In 2013, our community proved itself strong by running toward those in the aftermath of the attack instead of away from the attack itself. This year, we proved ourselves Boston Stronger by embracing our past, yes, but also by forging our own path forward with strength, good will and an unwavering resilience.